


Pressure on my Hollow Bones

by sequence_fairy



Category: Satan and Me (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-05
Packaged: 2019-05-18 10:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14851424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Natalie thinks she should understand him, that she should be able to smooth the crease between his brows, but she barely remembers her own name, let alone anything else.





	Pressure on my Hollow Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt.

He doesn’t talk much at first, keeps his distance, doesn’t touch her unless he has to, won’t let her touch him either. Natalie is sure something is wrong between them, something is broken, possibly beyond repair, but she doesn’t have the slightest clue as to what, or why, or how. 

Her mind feels like it’s made of Swiss cheese. There are holes, holes she is sure that she should be mad about, but since she doesn’t know what’s supposed to fit in them, there’s nothing to be mad at. 

He calls himself Satan, tells her that she used to call him Stan, but neither name sits right on her tongue, and he holds himself like he’s aching, like there’s something pulling him off-balance. He tells her that they were friends, that he knows her, that he’ll take care of her, but there’s something dying in his voice when he says it, some kind of agony, quickly shuttered, in his eyes. 

Natalie lets him take her out for a meal, but she can’t eat. She pushes her fries around her plate, and he tries to goad her into eating, but the potatoes turn to ash in her mouth. There’s something so, so wrong about all of this. 

He lets her use the washroom and she sees the phone, and before she knows what she’s doing, she’s calling, and then he’s there, up in her space and the shadows lengthen curiously behind him. He snatches the phone out of her hand, and Natalie freezes. He stares at her, and then something happens and his whole face changes and she watches the confidence crumble out of his shoulders. 

She agrees to go back with him. There’s too much silence, Natalie thinks, suddenly, on the walk back to the hotel. She feels like there used to be so many words between them, loud voices and maybe laughter, probably teasing. He still looks off-balance as he walks beside her, and Natalie resists the urge to reach out to steady him, she’s afraid of what she’s seen under his skin. 

Later, after she’s spent hours trying to summon up the courage to ask, he lets her see the ruin of his back. Her own shoulder blades twitch in sympathy, as she gazes at the jagged, slicing wounds that paint his skin. It’s the first time he lets her touch him, and she screws it up - too curious, too eager and stripped of whatever knowledge she used to have about how to do this. She can feel it, beating at the edges of her awareness; a familiarity, lost to some shadowy past. 

She goes to sleep, facing away from him, because his eyes glow in the dark and she can’t look at them without wanting to cry and entirely unsure what reaction that would provoke.

Sometime in the dark of the night, she wakes up. 

“You lied to me,” he’s saying, vicious snarl beneath the careful whisper of his voice. “You lied to me, Natalie. I gave up  _everything_ , and you  _lied_.” The last word ends on a ragged exhale. 


End file.
